A Luthor Christmas Carol
by Sky Samuelle
Summary: The Luthor family faces a very difficult Christmas in a far away future. Lex and Lana have lost a son, can they overcome their pain to remember the dark love they still share?Post S7 FIC
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER 1**

_Do you think the path you've chosen won't bring you pain? There'll be pain and you won't be the only one to suffer. _

After so many years since hearing those words from his late mother in an hallucination induced by a highly dangerous drug, Lex Luthor was rather pissed off to discover he still remembered them, although not precisely – a fact which unnerved him even more, because he wasn't used to having his memory failing him when it came to details, regardless of how unimportant they were.

After all the time and effort he had spent in the past to erase that whole episode from his subconscious, rationalizing it as a projection of his deeper fears and insecurities, it was quite ironic to find his mind drifting back to those faded, haunting lines.

All his life, he had wished to be a believer but the scientist in him had always prevailed, cajoling him to substitute faith with a most accessible control. He had matured the conviction that, even if any deity or greater power existed, it had never deigned to listen to his prayers or to bring him comfort, so its existence made hardly any concrete difference.

Lex liked to think of himself as a practical man, even if he had never managed to completely dominate that part of him which had remained a romantic at heart.

Since his rebellious adolescence and his reckless experimenting with recreational drugs – he had learnt far too soon he was able to tolerate higher dosages than average and metabolize them faster- there had often been strange dreams he could barely remember but which had left him restless. To this day, he seemed prone to receive inspirational speeches from his mother, Duncan, his father or even Grant Gabriel and a sociopath version of himself whenever his life was endangered… but the visions which haunted his sleep at night were the very same he pushed out of his mind by daylight, categorizing them as a peculiar side-effect of long-term neurological damage due to a meteor infection.

_You were right, mom. _

He could no longer deny it or rationalize it. He had made the wrong choice, it didn't matter how he looked at it. Even if it had turned out to be a false trail in the end, he should have tried to chase the mirage of happiness a Christmas Eve's dream had promised him so long ago.

If he had truly found Lana's sincere love just to lose her while she gave birth to their daughter, it would have been a crippling tragedy, but he would have survived it, finding comfort in the certainty he had offered her a poor but happy life. He would have eventually found peace in raising their children and then, maybe, he would have been happy again.

But back in those days, Lex had been too young to realize that there are worse things than not having enough power to preserve his wife's life.

Today there was an older man staring at the fireplace of his study- a circular, large room at his Metropolis mansion.

He had been naïve to think he could have it all. He had been stupidly self-complacent when he had held for the first time a grey-eyed newborn in his arms… Alexander Julian Luthor. His Alex.

The vivid memory of a light weight being placed in his arms by a brightly smiling nurse in a expensive private clinic dried his throat and Lex felt a sudden, imperious necessity to pour himself a scotch. He didn't try to resist the impulse. 

Apparently, he had truly gotten it all: he had married Lana twice and she had given him two amazing children. Except his marriage was an endless struggle for power largely based on mutual aggression and manipulation, a fact he hadn't minded until Alex had died two years ago.

That death was a blow so unexpected, so _unnatural _(no parent should have being forced to outlive his child, he mused) that Lex couldn't imagine ever recovering from it. There were cloned spare bodies for every member of his little family in the 33.1 laboratories for _emergencies_ like that one, but Alex hadn't had the chance to benefit from his father's compulsive prudence. His boy had just fallen victim to a parasite coming from another dimension which the Justice League had –perhaps accidentally, perhaps not- put on the Luthorcorp path and his body had decomposed before lobotomy could ensure his survival. 

Alex's absence was an angry ache which constantly burned inside Lex until it peaked into sharply painful moments when he was almost unable to breathe.

Nothing, losing Lana included, could have crippled him so completely because -even if Lex Luthor couldn't say he was a moral or a decent human being, even when he hadn´t exactly been a perfect husband- he had always been a good father, ready to protect his children from any danger, willing to give them all the time and the approval Lionel had once denied him.

He had been a good father.

But if all his wealth couldn't buy Lana's pure happiness or their daughter's serenity, if all his power hadn't guaranteed his son's safety, it had been all for nothing.

Every supposedly evil deed he had done, every law he had violated, every moral principle he had gotten past … they were all useless because he couldn't stop life from taking its course. He could hate Superman and his league of amateur vigilantes, but it wouldn't change the uselessly self-destructive path he had chosen to follow.

He could see it so clearly now, but it was too late. Backtracking from the darkness which permeated his world would just endanger his family and himself further.

Even if it had meant eternal damnation to him, Lex hoped there was a god somewhere. To welcome Alex up there , to keep his boy tucked in some safe and happy place.

" You should _really_ stop trying to do your liver a seven years' damage in one night. "

There were only two people who dared to enter his study without knocking. Lex turned away from the fire, slightly smiling, to see a fourteen girl on the threshold.

Lucine Luthor was just as old now as her brother had been when he died. She had Lana's eyes and nose but the rest of her features–from her long red hair to her mouth and complexion-hadbeen clearly inherited from her grandmother Lillian.

She was scrunching up her nose in the same way he had seen Lana do so often but the grin on her face was entirely Luthor-like.

"It's not like I can actually get cancer. "

He answered her quietly because of his two children only Lucine had inherited his mutation and every cursed gift which went with it: a fast metabolism, wounds and scrapes that healed at an abnormal speed without leaving any scars, an immune system revved up enough to steer away any _Earthly _ailment. If Alex had been as lucky he would have probably survived. Lex had been unable to exclude the possibility that a part of Lana blamed their daughter for that.

Lucine swayed gracefully to reach her father; her poise and elegance distinguishing her from other teens who, unlike her, hadn't spent most of their life under the intense scrutiny of the media. There wasn't a single awkward or gawky cell in this little princess; she had always been quiet, attentive and self-assured, sure of her right to get from anyone the same proud adoration she received from her parents. Alex had been more hyperactive as a child, more hot-headed and less tolerant of the constraints their social position imposed on their family as an adolescent.

"How do I look?"

Lucine was wearing an empire-style evening dress in shades of blue and pink with a multicolor beaded bodice, a chiffon blue shawl covering her shoulders. Swirling on her tiptoes, she beamed at her father, impishly asking for praise with an excitement which amused him. 

"Like the princess of those snowy fairy tales."

He teased her, referring to a fairy tale she had loved so much until not so long ago. As a father, he could at least be grateful she was still holding onto her childhood in some respects, even while the life they led had forced her to mature more precociously than others. 

"Not their queen?"

"I think you will have to wait a few years for that. You know, you have to work on your commanding tones. "

Rising from his armchair, Lex offered his arm to her, smirking a little because her good mood was making him feel better about the present festivities.

"Is Mom still not coming?"

The question sounded somewhat shy but it was rhetorical in essence. Lex pretended to pick some imaginary bits of fluff off the black dinner jacket so as not to cringe. He and Lana had been giving each other the cold shoulder since their latest spat at the beginning of that week. How do you explain to your daughter that you can barely stand to look at her mother? That she feels the same but you are mostly irritated because she's refusing to accompany you and her to the Christmas Eve's party held by Baroness Paula von Gunther ?

"She has a headache."

The excuse was poor and Lex knew it, but putting too much effort in lying to Lucine would have been fruitless. Lana wasn't exactly making an effort to hide how unfair she thought it was to celebrate Christmas without Alex.  
His daughter didn't comment over his faux pas but simply leaned her head on his shoulder, her smile unwaveringly bright.

"We shall have to try to have fun without her then. "

Her voice was a bit too bright, and Lex couldn't avoid noticing it pitched higher over her last words; he now resented his absentee wife for that.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2**

Lana Luthor stood hidden behind her bedroom curtain, spying her husband and daughter entering their black SUV. Mercy Graves, their Security Chief and occasional driver, was accompanying them.

Lana kept staring out of the window a long time after the car had driven away. She felt almost unable to stop clenching the curtain's soft texture between her fingers, but eventually she forced herself to move away.

It shamed her how much this tension between her and Lex was managing to exasperate her, but she didn't know how to heal the breach between them.  
In the past, angry sex had always worked wonderfully to dissolve any residual hard feelings left by their arguments… it was their silent and proud way to remind each other that they fit together regardless of how ed up their life could get.

Too bad this time it wouldn't be so simple; Lex had used the bitterest part of the current week to master the art of barely looking at her unless it couldn't be avoided. At night, when they retired to their bedroom ,and he could no longer help it, there was such disgust in his pale eyes that she suspected only pride was preventing him from occupying one of their guest rooms.

Lana sat with a sigh before her vanity and brushed her dark hair back from her face.

She looked young for her age and a large part of the credit went to few products of a Luthor Pharmaceutical line of cosmetics aimed at slowing cellular aging. It was such a waste _Lois Lane _and _Kara Kent _had made their business to investigate how those products were being experimented… Lex had been terribly rattled for that breach in their security and Lana had shared his feelings completely. After all, that particular project had been her baby and it was she who had followed its development step by step. Now they wouldn't be able to reap its fruits, because if LuthorCorp hadn't managed to completely deny all the rumours published by the Daily Planet they would have risked compromising Lex' s political campaign with an untimely scandal.

But she couldn't bear thinking of the Justice League or anyone associated with it now. As far as she was concerned, Alex would have still been alive if Superman and his long line of arse-kissers had kept their moral issues to themselves. The mere memory of how she had once allowed Clark Kent to touch her body and heart sickened her…he and his friends had to pay for taking her son away.

Lana couldn't understand why her husband had stopped sharing her thirst for revenge. He had been just as enthusiastic as she was, at first.

"_I won't allow you to do to Lucine what you once used to do to me_ – he had said to her during their latest fight- _all you do is crying over what you have lost and being blind to what you still have. _"

How had he dared to speak to her like that; as if he had needed protecting Lucine from her? As if she had suddenly turned into a neglectful parent only because she didn't feel truly happy now that another year was going by without her firstborn.

Christmas had always been special for this family. Lex would bring Alex to choose their tree and Lana would stay home preparing decorations with Lucine: they used to choose a new theme and matching colours each year.

Last year before tragedy struck them, they had chosen Winter as a theme, using blue ribbons, silver balls, synthetic snow, glass angels. They had tried to bake gingerbread, with horrid cinder-tasting results. Of course, Lex had tried to convince their daughter their cookies tasted good all the same, because he would have said anything to give to Lucine or Alex a perfect Christmas and he went out of his way to make sure his work never got in the way.

Whatever else could be said about him, Lex Luthor was a great dad and he was proud of it. Probably because it was the only area where he felt he had completely freed himself of Lionel's influence.

After they had decided giving their marriage a second go, they had soon agreed it wouldn't be been wise to introduce a child to the darkness which surrounded them. At least until Lex hadn't tried his hand at seducing Oliver Queen' s fiancée and using her to expose the Justice League.

Lana shuddered at the memory: the powerful emotion which had poisoned her senses when she had discovered that betrayal hadn´t been jealousy. Her anger towards her husband had been tampered by the conviction he had pursued the affair out of strategy, but nothing had prepared her for the streak of fierce territoriality which had almost made her demand that the other woman be destroyed and humiliated for merely desiring a man who didn't belong in her bed.

A few months later Lana had stopped taking the pill, eventually demanding a child when she was already pretty sure Lex would be quite late in denying her. Alex had been conceived because she wanted a more permanent claim than marriage on Lex, and Lucine had followed because both Luthors had suffered in their childhood as only children.

It seemed oddly fitting they build their family on secrets and lies, considering how her relationship with Lex had started, but it was truly baffling how something so beautiful could grow from rotten roots.

She had come to know from ample evidence that Lex couldn't live without trying to control his environment and the people around him, and it had nothing to do with not caring. If anything, Lex cared too much. Control was an often destructive but very concrete compulsion he couldn't separate himself from: as soon as he got what he wanted, he either became bored with it or consumed with the fear of losing it. _Lana´s faked pregnancy was definite proof of this._

Being married to a Luthor and being considered his equal – a true partner, not an idol to be admired and sheltered- meant being able to take away from him the control he held onto so desperately, preventing his manipulations by weaving yours but without crossing the line between self-preservation and back-stabbing.

It was a tenuous balance, but it was no mystery you could only obtain respect from a con artist by swindling him and their arrangement had worked amazingly well to satisfy certain parts of him and to set free certain parts of her, so it had always felt as if their results were worth their effort.

On days like this one, Lana wondered why they couldn't be different- why Lex couldn't curb his controlling urges and why she couldn't refrain from sinking her teeth in his scars- but this was the way they were made.

Maybe they were meant to come together only to crash violently against each other time after time: their history had progressed from an unlikely friendship to an ill-timed romance born from the ashes of another love, from a first marriage begun with deceit and coercion to a reconciliation founded on mutual obsession.

But when it came down to it, their relationship was the most real and passionate she had ever been in. Lex was her husband and it hardly mattered if he was a meteor freak, a criminal, a liar or a cheater, because he was part of her now, and she couldn't hate him or love him more than she hated or loved herself.

Lex had a way to hold onto loss even when real love was gone -Clark and his father were certified examples of this. He loved so deeply than he was unable to ever leave his past behind, even when he was perfectly willing to act against such tender feelings because he felt threatened.

Lana regretted bitterly having brought up that weakness of his during their argument. She had lashed out accusing him of not doing enough to stop Clark and everything had started to fall apart after that: Lex had become very emotional about the whole the matter -a fact she knew he despised because he thought losing his cool before an attacker was beneath his IQ- and they had ended up saying horrible things to each other.

The distance between them now was palpable, an invisible hand which clenched around her heart and squeezed hard when she tried to breathe too deeply, or when she closed her eyes and longed to fall asleep. Being furious with him drained her, but it was still preferable to the cutting solitude she felt when they were apart.

Lex was wise enough not to leave her in a spur of irrational anger: she had moulded herself to be his ideal complement . He needed someone with the ability to deflect negative attention from the media; a companion who could challenge him without endangering him, understand him without tearing him apart.

Mercy couldn't be all those things to him, even if the younger woman hero-worshipped her boss even more than Clark Kent used to during the early tentative years of their friendship. Lana supposed she couldn't blame Mercy for it, since her husband had literally saved her from insanity.

The Graves had lived in Smallville when the first meteor shower had killed Lana's parents and Lex' s chances of a normal childhood; Mercy's mother was been pregnant with her … it seemed radiations had mutated fetal DNA enough to give Mercy supernaturally fine senses and a volatile empathy. Lana hadn't bothered to learn more about her childhood, but it couldn´t have been pleasant if Mercy had lived on the streets from the age of fifteen to nineteen, when she had been hospitalized at Belle Reve for a psychotic break and brought to the attention of a group of Luthorcorp scientists. Once 33.1 had given her lucidity back to Mercy, she had become the first and only case of an almost successful escape attempt from their facilities. Lex had been so impressed with her combination of street savvy, bravado and cunning that after meeting her, he had offered her an extensive training in weaponry and hand-to-hand combat to make her into his personal bodyguard.

Lex could enjoy Mercy's cool and sardonic wit – she was the only one in their staff who could get away with calling him by his first name- and probably identify with her on a certain level, but Lana had observed them together often enough to warrant there was no attraction between them. 

Still, Lex considered Mercy his creature and he put in her loyalty the moderate amount of trust required to send her out as his 'executive arm' whenever a shady situation required it.

It was a despicable concept but Lana had to admit that, if her husband had not received from her the human contact he needed, their Security Staff would have been the most likely to suffer.

Realizing how paranoid she was being over a stupid spat, Lana covered her face with her palms, suppressing a groan. Lex _wouldn't _leave her or cheat on her and she was behaving like the needy, needlessly possessive society wife she had sworn never to become.

Just… fighting with Lex made her feel uneasy and immature. Right or wrong, she was tired of being angry with him and of having him be angry with her.

But he was been a class A bastard to accuse her of neglecting Lucine. Her relationship with their daughter was just fine without his over-bearing interference!

There was no possibility that Lucine ignore how much her mother loved her, and it wasn't true Lana spent more time licking her wounds than living.

Although… she supposed it was true she had made that mistake with Nell, stubbornly refusing to let her aunt fill the void her parents had left.

But it had felt wrong to accept someone else´s guidance unquestioningly as if Mom and Dad could be easily substituted; in the same way that it felt wrong now to go on as if Alex hadn't once laughed and breathed within the walls of their house. Alex had been clever and beautiful and special… someone who deserved to be missed.

Maybe the reason Lana had reacted so violently to Lex' s accusations was her guilt over keeping Nell at arms' length.

Perhaps, deep down, she feared someday her relationship with her beautiful, snarky, spirited Lucine would deteriorate the same way her relationship with Nell had.

And if she feared that… maybe Lex wasn't completely wrong. 


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3**

Lana's recriminations over her family had made her so restless that she soon gave up, lying down quietly on her wide, lonely bed. She resigned herself to waiting up her husband and daughter curled up reading a Victorian poetry book, but time seemed to pass very slowly until, finally, she heard a rumour announcing a car parking in their yard.   
Frozen, with her book opened on her lap, Lana waited motionlessly. Then, Mrs Luthor realized she had no idea of what exactly she was waiting for; so she rose and slipped behind the bedroom door, refusing to wonder why she was opening it so quietly.  
It was a strange relief to hear Lucine's distinctive, light footsteps in the hallway… her daughter was bound to pass in front of her parents' room to reach hers.

"Lucine," Lana called in a low voice which, nonetheless, startled the approaching red-haired girl.

"Mom! Have I awakened you?"

"No, ¨ Lana cleared her throat, suddenly too dry, ¨ have you had fun?"

Lucine shrugged, tilting her head to one side in a manner reminiscent of Lex when he was speculating, as if she were considering which answer would get her into less trouble.

" I didn´t get bored. The Baroness has a daughter of my age who studies in a Swiss boarding school. She let me try her piano. "

"I'm glad," Lana murmured with a forced smile. "I wish I could have come with you. You look very pretty"

"Thank you."

"Where's your dad?"

"Downstairs. He stopped by his study."

Probably delaying the moment he would have to share his breathing space with his wife, Lana thought with a sting of bitterness.

Meeting her daughter's dark eyes, so much like hers, Mrs. Luthor pushed away the resentful thought.

"Go to bed now. Tomorrow morning I will come to wake you up early. I want you to help me bake gingerbread and take over the cuisine before Elise tries to stop and delay us. "

Lana noticed she was babbling, considering the sheer impossibility in those last lines. She couldn't imagine their matron-looking but ever-obsequious cook Elise standing in the way of her masters, even if they had expressed their wish to cook roasted waitresses for dinner. It was Lucine's fault, of course. The girl was giving her mother a quizzical look, rather similar to that she had shot when Lex had once painted to their children a vivid picture of Lana's cheerleading and pastel-colored clothes days.

"Gingerbread?"

"Yes, gingerbread. Now go to bed."

"Um, Okay, mom. "

Squaring her shoulders and closing her bedroom door behind her, Lana gazed at her daughter until the darkness of the long hallway swallowed her frame completely. She didn't particularly look forward to apologizing to Lex. This little interlude with Lucine had been awkward enough.

Lana found out that Lex had indeed lingered in his study, trying to drink himself to oblivion. The door was ajar and she could see him downing a shot of scotch. He had slumped with unusual inelegance over the armchair he usually favoured, in front of an unlit fireplace- a pitiful picture, unbecoming to him.

"Are you planning to drink until you pass out here or are you coming to bed? "

Lana was horrified to find her voice had a slightly petulant edge. Lex turned his face toward her, seemingly unsurprised to see her on the threshold. He darted her a bored look, his features twisted in a mask of vaguely hostile superiority. His eyes swept over her petite figure, noticing with disapproval she was probably wearing little under the blue silk dressing which clung to her curves.

"We won't the issue out of our system this time around, Lana"

He said it patronizingly, as if he considered that habit distasteful… as if he hadn't actively encouraged it until not so long ago. .

"I know"

She bit back at him frostily, moving inside the room with a confidence she didn't feel, fighting at every step her instinctive urge to let the matter rest until tomorrow.

The indifference in his gaze before her distress angered her a little, and this fortified her somehow. Wrapping her arms around herself as if to hold on to her own warmth, Lana tried a more cautious approach. She hadn´t come to end the drama or to prolong it.

"I'm not being difficult on purpose Lex. I just… don't want to let him go"

Lex raised his eyebrows mockingly and an arrogant, unhappy smirk formed on his mouth.

"Do you think I want to?"

His grip on the glass in his hand tightened painfully, his knuckles becoming white.

"Every morning I see his chair empty at breakfast and I know it should have been me. But, despite how much I hate not having him there, how much I wish I could take his place, I can't change the fact I failed him. I failed him, when I could have given him all that I have never had. Being sorry doesn't give me the right to drown Lucine in my sorrows. Same goes for you, I'm afraid. "

Lana blinked very slowly, taking it all in. In two years, she had never suspected he was guilt-tripping himself so.

"You can't seriously put the blame on you. You couldn't have protected Alex better unless you had been God. "

"Ah, but I thought I was better than that, didn't I?"

It was painful to hear the self-loathing so apparent in his words. She was able- for a moment- to read with frightening clarity his current train of thought: Superman-if he had fathered a child- would never have allowed him to die.

Lana sprinted forward, overcome by a sudden and raw impulse to hold this man in her arms and never let him go.

She knelt down before her husband and, gently, took the empty glass from his hand, unclenching his fingers one by one. Keeping her tone soft and low, almost as if she were soothing a wild horse, she offered him the only words of comfort he would accept; if only to convince him he wasn't to blame for their son's sad fate.

"We must find a way to go on without torturing ourselves so, Lex , for Lucine at least. I love you both so much, but you were right in telling me I wasn't being fair to you or her. Believe me, the last thing I want is to cause you and her any more pain."

She set the glass on the floor and raised her arms to encircle his broad shoulders. Lex resisted her at first, but then he melted against her body, sliding his arm around her lower back to gather her in his lap.  
Lana eased his head on her breast, surprised she could be so aware of the contact between their bodies even while their intimacy had nothing of sexual.

--

For a long time, he lay immobile and boneless in her embrace, but she realized at last that they couldn't stay in that deliciously uncomfortable tangle all night along. She felt pathetically reluctant to disengage herself from it anyway since she knew moments like those were all the more precious because they were so rare. It was hardly likely she would ever enjoy the luxury of seeing her husband showing himself so vulnerable and lost to her eyes again, let alone have the chance to cradle him .  
The feeling of his fingers playing idly with locks of her raven hair, of his breath on her naked skin gave her a drowsy sort of gratification.

"Lex? We must go to bed."

"Must we? It's our house after all."

He sounded sleepy, as if all the alcohol in his blood had finally caught up with him and caused him a heavy somnolence. It was probably the case. It wouldn't be the first time.

"You'll thank me tomorrow when your back isn't aching."

Her teasing had made Lex finally raise his head off her chest, but his gaze didn´t focus on her face. She felt his fingertips slowly, gingerly, trailing her skin from her earlobe to her jaw.

He smiled up at her - a tentative, soft , sad and most likely drunken smile- and right then he looked the farthest thing from a remorseless villain or even a ruthless businessman. He looked simply young and lost.

It would have been endearing if it hadn´t been scary.

"If I had believed in happiness, I would have made you happy. All of us, as a matter of fact. "

Confused, Lana shook her head. "We have been happy, Lex"

"We have had moments of ecstasy and contentment in between eras of pandemonium. Don't you ever wonder if we could have had… "

He trailed off, seemingly unsure of how to articulate his ideas. Lana considered it another sign of an increasingly surreal situation. The man she had married wasn't the type to lose his sleep on what-ifs. What was happening to him?

"Nobody who truly knows humanity can be happy all the time. Your words, not mine. Are you feeling all right?"

Lex squeezed his eyes shut and when he opened them again, he looked a bit more awake.

"I'm fine. I guess it must have been a longer day than I thought. "

Lana didn't allow him to look away from her, tilting up his chin with one hand while she laid the other on his nape.

"You know what you mean to me. I knew what I was getting into when I chose to share this path with you, and I knew it wouldn't be easy, but I knew I wouldn't regret it either. "

She could tell, from the sudden stillness of Lex's features, that he didn't know anything about it; either about her lack of regrets or about what she owed to him.

"If I look back on my life before you, it looks like a lie. Perhaps it began when my parents died…there was this part of me who was so furious with them for just standing there and staring at the sky waiting to be killed. But everybody coddled me and repeated how miserable I must be and how unfortunate their deaths have been, so I soon felt as if I had no right to feel that way. I didn't think they would love me half that much if I had confessed that little, dirty secret, so I swallowed it and forgot all about it. As I grew up, Smallville kept seeing me as this sweet, pretty, pure angel; but I knew I wasn't that girl. I kept dreaming and waiting for some prince charming to come and rescue me from that image of myself, as if I were a fairytale princess entrapped in an impenetrable tower. "

Irony had coloured her description heavily by its end, and Lana could have laughed at her past naïveté if she hadn't remembered a prince had indeed entered her life and turned it around.

Clark had been her hero- all selflessness, candy-sweet romance and safety- but all he had accomplished was to set higher, thicker walls to her ivory tower. But she didn't need to remind Lex about that part of their history.

"Then I found you and you were no prince. You were the dragon who set my prison on fire. _You made me real_, Lex. Sometimes I hated you for it, but in the end I had no choice but to love you more for the same reason. "


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4 **

Lex stared at his wife's face without blinking for so long that she was certain his sight must have grown blurry. He didn't move and his body still felt relaxed against her, but Lana wasn't reassured, only perplexed.

She hadn't programmed any clumsy sort-of-love declaration when she had decided to apologize but if she had, she wouldn't have anticipated his unresponsiveness. He might have mocked her or proclaimed to feel the same, but placid passivity wasn't what she had anticipated. His reactions where heart matters were concerned were more melodramatic than this; at least, usually.

Feeling like a particularly vulnerable kind of fool, Lana needed to busy her hands to think clearly of why this was going wrong. So she averted her eyes from his, slowly loosened his white tie and, then, proceeded to undo the first buttons of his white shirt .

Maybe he could interpret her gestures as a sexual preliminary, but Lana didn't particularly care about it. If he assumed so and disapproved it, he would ignore her while if he approved… well, probably falling back into their old pattern and forgetting the weakness they had so brazenly exposed was the least embarrassing alternative available.

Absently, she smoothed softly the immaculate texture of his shirt, surprised when a larger hand wrapped around her left wrist, blocking her motions. Looking up instinctively, Lana found herself pinned in place by two greyish blue irises… so close, she could distinguish darker, cobalt flickers around the black of his pupils. There was an emotion reflected there and, although she couldn't say which, she felt his warmth seeping through his palm onto her skin.

Lex moved errant locks off her visage and tucked them behind her ears while they both kept silently looking at each other, Lana's subdued anxiety morphing into a different tension, like a pleasant awareness of both their physical proximity and his undivided attention. When he leaned forward and kissed her forehead, Lana's eyes fluttered shut for a few seconds.

"It's late. Let's go upstairs. "

His voice was a deep rumble against her ear and left Lana oddly pleased as she slid off his lap, squeezing his hand in hers. He led her up the stairs and to their bedroom, their fingers still entwined.

They didn´t have sex that night, but they slept back to back, mutually satisfied of feeling the each close without giving up their personal space . They had developed the habit of lying like this along their years together, whenever they both had difficulty to fall asleep, but it surprised Lana that Lex was the one to initiate it this time. He looked tired and he disliked having so close a contact with her while he slept, because he was a light-sleeper and his dreams were often disturbed.

Lana closed her eyes smiling, deeply relaxed by the sensation of her back leaning on his and feeling, for the first time in a long while, that the scattered shreds of their life coalesced into something more than just memories. Her last thought before consciousness deserted her was it was nice knowing Mr and Mrs Luthor were still capable of slipping and being cheesy once in a while.

By her side, Lex replayed their recent encounter in his mind again and again, wanting to savour it while he could. He didn't want to fall asleep- he could just put off all the second-guessing until the following morning, when he would take a look at the woman beside him and wonder if she was been just striving to mollify him. Tonight he didn't feel stoic enough to doubt his wife's sincerity. Tonight he wanted to believe she was truly grateful for this family, compromised and messed up as it was. He wanted to believe Lana didn't regret the woman she had become in order to embrace the curse the Luthor name brought with it, that she had indeed sought to survive Alex's brutal disappearance in ways which went beyond the physical sense.

It was just enough feeling her presence a mere breath away from him, having her back pressed up against his and her bodily-warmth spreading all over him, just like it had in his study a few moments ago. It meant a lot to him they hadn't cheapened the fragile understanding between them with sex, especially because the temptation had so clearly hovered between them in the darkness of the room, when he was undressing himself before a Lana curled up on the huge, white bed. If they had made love, it would perhaps have been soft and gentle. But when he had sat beside her, one shared look had sufficed to realise that giving in to passion would have belittled the importance of what they had so recently shared.

Yet, Lex had been faintly shocked when Lana had scooted over and _tucked him in._

_You were the dragon who set my prison on fire. You made me real, Lex._

A distinct image of a teenage Lana when he had first met her flashed before his eyes: less pronounced cheekbones, a wide and open smile, a direct gaze. She had looked soft, bright, full of promise, but he hadn't wanted her as anything more than a friend. Or, to put it more sincerely, he had been certain than any chemistry that might exist between them was a better basis for a friendship than a romance. She had been cute, but too sweet and nice for someone tainted like him. Only when she had come back from her summer in Paris, did he have a glimpse of the ambitious, cunning, hungry-for-answers creature lurking underneath the glittering surface… and he had been entranced by her like he had never been by anything before. Lex closed his eyes and fought a smile: Lana's light could have charmed him at first, but later it was her darkness he had fallen in love with.

A shame he hadn't included her in his projects about 33.1 right away, rather than eluding her questions with white lies and half-truths. If he hadn't adored her so, he would have realized much sooner that her interest in his suspicious activities during the first stages of their relationship had been an open invitation to involve her in the shadier part of his life.

Excluding her had caused a breach between them, pushing her back toward Clark. Lex had spent enough time analyzing their past failures to see how a partnership would have bound her to him far more tightly than a fake pregnancy, while fracturing her most self-righteous friendships. If only he had been rational enough to understand it then, the path before them would have run far more smoothly.

It seemed impossible now, contemplating how he had once feared for her innocence and wanted to spare it. Lana was such a part of his eternal night, now. His partner, his ally and lover. Occasionally his rival. He wouldn't have been capable of severing this woman from his life even if he had learnt to hate her. But she still loved him. _They_ still loved each other, regardless of how difficult it was to believe love could survive in their world of shadows and blood.

Lex Luthor fell asleep, his lips finally giving up on their attempt not to curl in a smile.

* * *

_"Dad, when did this guy die? " _

"1853, I think"

At the sound of a pen brushing on paper, he looked up from a Luthorcorp report to see Alex's head bent on his research as the child scribbled on the other side of the desk.

"Alex, don't write it down right away. Check it out in some encyclopaedia "

The little boy shrugged, not even looking up from his paper.

"You remember everything "

"I'm no a walking textbook."

"You could have fooled me, Dad. "

His son looked up, an impish grin on his guileless face, mirth in his greyish eyes and Lex couldn't reproach him anymore. It had been a hard and trying day, but he didn´t feel like denying Alex the right to sit with him in the study while they both finished what they were supposed to. The kid hated studying History on his own- hated History in general, a fact his father could empathize with. But nobody studies History because they like it, they do because it is useful. 

The morning after, Lex woke up to an empty bed. It took him a few seconds to distinguish what, among the confused memories of his son and wife, was real and what was a dream.  
It was Christmas morning and he had dreamt of Alex, the first joyful dream about his son in what felt like an eternity. It was also possible that his subconscious had dredged up a real episode of the past: it hadn´t been unusual for Alex to finish his homework in his father's study after dinner, if it was a task he was particularly bored with.

Lex looked back to the other side of bed, the one his wife had left vacant. It was a good sign- a depressed woman slept late, especially if she was aiming to ignore the festive activity around her- but he didn't want to read too much into it.

Without bothering to dress- a fact in itself rather uncharacteristic of him, but he could afford some indulgence given the special occasion- he left the master bedroom and went downstairs, puzzled at the still silent house. It was early, but not so much that for him not to hear the staff hovering to prepare breakfast.

The dining room was empty, but the table had been perfectly set, with a red tablecloth and white napkins, a bottle of water, a glass vase filled with mistletoe and red tulips. But there was nothing else on. Strange.

Moving toward the kitchen, Lex could hear a metallic rumour, his daughter's barely suppressed giggles, his wife's soft whispering.

He opened the door and his two girls turned their amused faces abruptly away from the oven and toward the source of the interruption.

Lana and Lucine stood there- in kitchen- wearing their nightclothes, their faces dirty with white flour and their hair ruffled. The scene was surreal. For a moment, he wondered if he was still asleep and dreaming.

"Lex, it's early. What are you doing up? "

Lana had the gall to appear faintly surprised, as if he had been the one to behave questionably.

"It's not so early anymore. He shrugged, raising his eyebrows suggestively. What's going on here?"

Lucine answered with wild excitement in her voice. "Isn't it obvious? We gave Elise a free morning and took over the kitchen to make our special Christmas breakfast. "

Since the situation was nowhere as hilarious as her tone let suppose, perhaps he hadn´t been the only one to be surprised today… Lex glanced to Lana, who looked completely enthralled with her task of peeling an apple.

This had been definitely her idea.

"Well, we were just trying to bake gingerbread at first, but then I think our enthusiasm got a bit out of hand. "

Lana pointed toward a huge pile of pancakes on the table, while Lucine swayed a plate of chocolate smeared crepes under his nose invitingly.

"Honestly, Dad, who would have known it would take so little time to make all these?"

A slow grin stretched Lex' s lips as he shook his head in disbelieving bemusement.

"So, what are you doing now?"

"Candy Apples. Nell used to make them for me all the time when I was little. "

Finally braving up enough to look up at his face without undeniable but indefinable embarrassment, Lana threw her husband a challenging smirk, her eyes gleaming with a a mysterious light which almost forced him to fall for her all over again.

"Since you are already up- she provoked him with a faintly mocking tone– we could allow you to help. "

"I would be honoured, " he answered her with the same good-natured haughtiness.

Giggling again as if she couldn't imagine anything funnier than her parents in the kitchen cooking on Christmas morning, a coppery-haired teen placed in his hands a large, red apple.

"Peel it, core it and fill the caved space with the minced hazelnuts. Then coat the apple with sugar and cinnamon and set it there in the baking tin "

The kid sounded so smugly professional about her instructions that her father could only nod and swallow a chuckle.

* * *


	5. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

As Metropolis Mayor, Lex Luthor has many public responsibilities he must assume along with his family, and Christmas Day is no exception.  
After a definitely informal breakfast they ended up having in the kitchen among piles of plates and dirty bowls, in spite of the perfectly set table in their dining room, the Luthors had to prepare themselves to attend a Christmas concert held at the Metropolis Home for Orphaned Children. Afterwards Lucine would be allowed to meet with her friends, while her parents visited the Paediatric Oncology Wing of hospital, bringing along gifts and sweets for leukemic kids and an outrageously generous check for the doctors, and delivering a moving and rehearsed speech for the journalists. Later in the evening, the small family would reunite and they would sit on the front pew of St. Brigit' s Cathedral for Mass.

It was a busy day they embarked on with a considerably improved mood and, while every one of them was very much aware of a notable absence in the family picture they presented, that nostalgia had for once an almost sweet taste, as if it were keeping Alex there with them a bit longer.

During Mass, Lana sat between her daughter and husband in the middle of the first pew, lulled in her musings by Gregorian chants. She felt unusually light, almost weightless, maybe even serene.

For the duration of the priest' s sermon, she had noticed both the looks of loathing and admiration their family received from every direction. The Luthor name evoked only extreme reactions in those who surrounded them.

She barely remembered what it felt like, looking from the outside at the living façade of mystery, glory and darkness when she was getting acquainted with Lex. Who would have ever guessed the kind of companion she would become for Lex? It seemed so unlikely that the Smallville resident version of America´s Sweetheart and the most ill-reputed billionaire would pair up so well.

Yet it had happened, and now she was married to the most powerful, complicated, challenging, intense man she had ever met.

She admired his profile, the way his simple presence seemed to implicitly command attention. He was wearing a midnight blue suit and an ivory-coloured necktie, and he had a unique way to project an aura of sophistication without casting any doubts on his heterosexuality, but rather transforming that natural elegance into another instrument for intimidation.  
Lex was the love of her life and how many people had the chance to find that?

Very few.

She caressed the back of his hand while keeping her head high, smirking inwardly as she glimpsed the stony expression which came over his face while he tried not to show his surprise.

--

Later, at home, Lex an their bodyguard, Hope Scofield, organised the security for their trip to Gotham for the New Year Celebration.

Hope was a blue- eyed, petite blonde beauty who the Luthors had recruited from a dynasty of professional killers… possibly the only person who considered employment in their household as a step up her family´s set of values. She was also the closest thing to a friend Lana had left.

After a bizarrely informal dinner they shared at the same table, Lex took out a bottle of Grey Pinot from their wine cellar and gathered their little team in his study to toast to another profitable year spent working together; he surely loved hearing himself talk, but thank God, he was both good and experienced with those small commemorative speeches. Somewhere along the long holiday cheer- surrounded by Lex, Lucine, Mercy and Hope- Lana finally saw with startling clarity something she had forgotten for a long time. These people had been a consistent fixture in her life for years.

Lex, who organized weekend getaways for her and their kids to exotic locations or cultural manifestations to give her time to cool off whenever he sensed she was getting too frustrated with him, but always welcomed them back with outstretched arms and romantic gestures, making her forget there had ever been a reason for tension.

Lucine, who had grown up from a quietly adoring, happy child to a self-assured teen who held her father wrapped around her little finger and didn't shy away from competition with her mom.

Mercy, who had helped her keep the situation away from the public eye when Brainiac had caused Lex to end up in a two-week coma with a virus genetically-engineered and programmed to interact specifically with his DNA, while Lana fought the rising panic to hold herself together long enough to find a cure.

Hope, who had been assigned to stay glued to her during those thirteen terrible days of the last trimester of her first real pregnancy, when Lana had been seriously terrified Alex would be stillborn and quite furious at Nell, who had refused to take a break from her routine to accompany her niece and nephew-in-law on their trip to Tokyo. Lana remembered being particularly *****y to her freshly-acquired bodyguard on that occasion… it was almost a miracle Hope had not shot her. Instead it had been the beginning of a true understanding.

In their way, they had all stood by each other through thick and thin. She couldn't say they made each other better people, or that their involvement with each other was always based on sincerity, trust or selflessness, but they were part of her history.

Even without Alex, she was less alone today than she had been twenty years ago.

__________________

So when she followed Lex into their bedroom, the first thing she did was to offer to loosen his necktie. It gave her the perfect excuse to put herself at a kissing distance.

She brushed her lips against his tentatively and was about to retreat self-consciously when he didn't immediately respond, but then Lex' s arms surrounded her waist firmly, pressing her hips against his.

"You are different today. There's a particular reason behind the sudden shift in mood?"

His hand continued to glide up and down her back with long, languid strokes  
that moulded her body against his. It was quite amusing –and typical- how her husband was physiologically unable to bring himself to relax before pulling apart the motivations for her softening toward him.

To think he was playing at seducing her into lowering her guard...

There were times when the scheming manner in which his brain worked drove her insane and times –like right now- when it only turned her on.  
She leant in to murmur in his ear "Just realized we are among the lucky ones, after all. " and kissed him again.

Lex allowed her into his mouth, cupping her bottom and drawing her closer to his groin.

She had always loved it when he gave the lead up to her.

Kissing slowly, languorously, they backed until his legs bumped against the edge of the bed, then he sat on the mattress and pulled her down on his lap, so that she straddled him.

Lana untucked his shirt out of his pants, half-irritated and half-aroused by how distracting the sensation of his tongue on her neck was proving to be; she could barely concentrate enough to undo his buttons. Her husband seemed content to enjoy her ministrations passively, his hands alternating between caressing her backside and cupping it to pull her tighter against him.  
They undressed each other slowly, uneasily. He grunted when she pushed him gracelessly down on his back, her little hands roaming over his muscular chest, her head bending to rain open-mouthed kisses over his shoulders and sternum.

So suddenly and effortlessly that she barely had time to realise or even prevent what he was about to do, Lex rolled them so that she found herself pinned under him.

He braced himself on his forearms and , lifting his head to get a good view of her flushed and wide-eyed visage, he shifted his hips and pressed the hot ridge of his hard-on between her spread thighs. Lana was almost angry because he was teasing her with a light touch which made her desperate for more.

Almost.

He was still observing her expression as if he were searching for some secret signal and it unnerved her a little, because she didn't know how to giving him what he wanted, but it also filled her with an urge that felt somehow different from the familiar pull to ravish him. She made a conscious attempt to let all the emotions she was experiencing enter her gaze for him to know how much this meant to her; how much he meant to her.

It frustrated her that she didn't quite manage to reach him and that the only thing she could do about her inability to express her feelings was to raise both hands to draw his head down and meet his mouth with her own.

She kissed him like she had never kissed anyone before, because this wasn't about making herself feel good and feminine, but about making him feel he was important and loved.

Funny, how long it had taken her to truly, fully realise she wanted to be the one to give him that.

Lana arched upward, wrapping her legs demandingly around his waist, and when Lex entered deep inside her she felt unbearably, sickeningly moved.  
His face hovered over hers, again watching raptly the pleasure so openly displayed by her features, her feverish eyes turned cobalt-coloured in the darkness enveloping their room.

"I truly, really mean it, you know. I love you " she gasped, just before sliding her palms along his torso to dig her nails in his sides, wanting to urge him to move harder and faster.

She didn't know what he read on her face this time, but whatever it was, it had to be the response he had been waiting since forever, because he grinned and, in spite of the man he was, of the woman she was, and of what they were doing, his grin had the hopeful purity of a spring-time dawn.

It had taken two lifetimes of wandering and emotional massacres, but at last Lex and Lana Luthor had finally found each other.

**THE END **


	6. Prequel

**Author: **Sky Samuelle  
**Title: **Damnation Becomes Us  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Disclaimer:** Characters belong to CW/DC comics  
**Summary: **my response to the Lexana Fairytales challenge and a prequel to A Luthor Christmas Carol. There it goes a short peek into another moment of drama for the Luthor family.  
**Author Note:** This fic has some potentially disturbing imagery, but I wanted to try something new.

**Damnation Becomes Us**

A lifetime ago, when Lana Luthor was still young and naïve Lana Lang, she remembered explaining her childhood sweetheart Whitney why out of all the fairytales her mum had told her while growing up, Snow White had always been the only one to scare her.

Whitney had laughed- it was so weird she could recall so clearly after more than a decade the way his blonde fringe used to fall all over his eyes when he shook his head in amusement, how he bellowed with laughter and told her that, if anything, she should have been more scared of Blue-Beard and his Seven Wives.

Strangely enough, Lana had been fascinated with the latter- maybe she had always had a secret taste for all things frightful and dark, whether she had been aware of it or not – but she had never been able to understand, even as she grew into an inquisitive teenager, what kind of prince would ever take the liberty of kissing an unconscious, deadly cold girl, after finding her glass coffin in the middle of the forest. Who cared how beautiful the Princess was? Morbid was morbid.

So it was deliciously ironic that at the sombre age of 34, Mrs Luthor found herself discovering a new sympathy for Prince Charming.

Some people were simply born to discover all their certainties could be disproved by adverse circumstances in various degrees of probability.

Checking her image in her pocket mirror, Lana was relieved but not excessively surprised to discover in her reflection an impeccable-looking woman. With her hair tied back tightly in a fashionable bun, faultless make-up and cold dark eyes, she appeared a mirage of distant, unapproachable beauty. She didn't look at all like a woman who hadn't had the courage to set foot in her house for a whole week, who hadn´t had a decent night of sleep for what it felt like an eternity.

It was a good thing, because she had appearances to keep up and worked hard to maintain a façade of normalcy in her current situation, but somehow her inability to exteriorise her distress in any way unnerved her.

Deep down, anxiety was a parasite which was eating at her from within. She wasn't unprepared for this, to manage crisis and face opponents on her own, but it had been a long time since she fought anything without Lex at her side. By an unspoken agreement, he had always been there to catch her before she could fall, no matter how well he pretended to leave her to her own devices.

Now it seemed it was her turn to rescue her husband from himself and Lana was desperate not to fail.

It was a modest consolation she wasn't completely on her own… Lex had taken care to prepare Mercy Graves for a similar eventuality –God bless his paranoia- and now the other woman was handling most of LuthorCorp-related issues while fabricating evidence of the Honduras business transaction Lex was allegedly involved in.

The only thing that Lana had to worry about was to find a way out. Because Lex Luthor, the man who was supposed never to get sick, had actually been in a coma for one week, plus two days and thirteen hours.

White as marble, he lay inside an aseptic, bare room at Level 33.1, his frame vaguely imposing under the fluorescent artificial lights, despite the many small IV tubes in his wrists and ankles and his nakedness underneath the plastic sheets.

The pallor of his complexion was so blatantly, disrespectfully unnatural that just looking at him was difficult: the tips of his fingers and nails had turned greyish and his veins looked like a blue-green net beneath his skin.

Yet, sitting there with him at night, helpless against those powerful tidal waves of panic crashing against her composure, was still better than coming home to their children, better than looking into their eyes and explaining with elaborate lies why she could not say when daddy was coming home .

There were only three people in this world she had trouble lying to: everyone else was nothing but a worthless and interchangeable decoration to her world of masks and puppets, a mindless audience to her eternal charade. So no, she wouldn't feed Lucine and Alex fake words of comfort. Their nanny could do that better… better than any distressed mother standing by a corpse-like father.

She couldn't lie to Lex either, using pretty speeches to conceal how the very sight of him chilled her now, to hide how she would prefer any other task to playing the casual helpless spectator to his slow decomposition, right here by his bedside. But she was out of alternatives. And so, she stood close to his bed, transfixed in spite of herself by his paper-thin, snowy-white skin, imagining the virus which was slowly eating him from within.

She was glad there had been no other tell-tale symptoms than her husband suddenly passing out in their limousine, in the middle of a toast after a gala soiree. For someone who no longer experienced illness, being powerless against the rebellion of his body must have been terrifying.

Perhaps they should have expected Braniac would retaliate sooner or later, considering the Luthors had ruined his plans of world domination more often than the Justice League during those last few years. Lex would have probably admired the sheer brilliance of the plan: engineering a virus aimed at specifically interacting with the DNA of a man with an invulnerable immune system required a certain ingeniousness, especially since Dr. Wong´s team was still searching for the source of the infection.

His wife didn't feel any compulsion to be so complimentary; engineering a suitable revenge sounded a lot better to her.

Lana observed her husband's body with critical eyes, feeling her panic subside as she splayed a well-manicured hand on his broad chest. Although he felt cold underneath her palm, the clammy softness of his skin reminded her he was flesh and bones, not the inanimate hard shell he could appear.

So she allowed her hand to wander, to follow the contours of his collarbone, the hollow of his throat, the cleft curve of his chin. She allowed her thumb to rub across his lips… actually Lex' s mouth had always been the most deceptively delicate-looking part of him…and the most dangerous.

Lana pointedly ignored both the warmth throbbing in her lower abdomen and the dampness on her cheeks; acknowledging them would have meant recognizing she was feeding on a desperate need to shed her clothing and touch him everywhere she could reach, to fight off the offending, invisible frost which was taking him away from her, day by useless day.

She refused to admit there might be a sound reason to be desperate.

As it was, she was barely half-aware of a guilty disappointment at the knowledge that she couldn't simply breathe life back into him with a kiss… or anything else. She fleetingly wondered if Isobel Theroux could have been capable of that.

Her shame died a quick, painless death when she remembered referring her inner debates over Snow White and her Prince Charming to Lex once.

They were both suffering a bout of insomnia, drinking a cup of tea in bed and making idle pillow talk without any hurry, pretending it wasn't the middle of night and they didn´t have an impossibly demanding schedule the following day.

Lex hadn't laughed. He had regarded her very seriously and nodded briefly, before he proceeded to explain why and how necrophilia had apparently held a powerful fascination for a few famous but doubtlessly mentally-deviated historical characters.

´Maybe damnation becomes us, my love,´ she pondered with a broken smile as she left a lingering kiss on his smooth head.

Drying her tears with the back of her hand, Lana chuckled and reached for her cell phone.

Lex had kept in touch with a college friend of his, Viktor Van Doom, and by the impression she had received on the few times she had met the man, he was deep enough into Occultism to put Isobel to shame.

Calling in old favours couldn't hurt. 

THE END


End file.
